101 NHL Games in Person

Back in April of 2016 I made the fateful decision to go to a Dallas Stars playoff game. The Stars were coming off their best regular season in a decade and I had a friend that I roomed with in pony conventions that wouldn't stop talking about them. I finally decided that I should go to a game just to see what the fuss was all about. I had been to a Kansas City Blades of the defunct International Hockey League back in the mid-90s, but I didn't really know what was going on then, and it had been 20 years since then. So I went to Game 2 of the Stars' first-round series against the Minnesota Wild. It was exciting and I had fun but still didn't really know what was going on. My friend had season tickets with two seats and he would invite me to come along, but I never had time since I lived two hours away. I didn't go to another Stars game until 2018 when I just happened to be in DFW for a Rangers game. I still didn't really have an idea of what was going on, but I became caught up in the atmosphere. So when my friend invited me to games I would accept.

I was still very new to hockey. I tried watching the sport on TV in the past, but it was never able to capture my attention. I realized that I was able to follow the action better in person, especially since our seats were in the upper deck where you can have a view of the entire ice. The more games I went to, the more I gained the ability to follow along with the action. I learned about some of the rules such as offsides and icing. I was better able to appreciate the fluidity of the game. And the more I knew the more I can appreciate watching the game on TV, and the more eager I'd be to watch the game in person. And so when I went to Michigan for a job interview I decided I wanted to go to a Red Wings game in Detroit. 

Pretty soon it got to the point where when my friend was giving up one of his season tickets, I picked it up officially making me a Stars season ticket holder. It led to me flying out to California just so I can watch the Sharks play. When I finally completed my journey to watch a game at every active MLB stadium, I decided that yes, I did want to take on the challenge of going to every NHL arena. I've been keeping track of every NHL game I've been to very much like how I do with MLB games. And on Tuesday February 13 I went to a Nashville Predators game in Bridgestone Arena. When I entered it into my spreadsheet I realized that it was the 100th NHL game I've been to! The milestone just caught me off guard! I had already made a plan to go to a St. Louis Blues game in Enterprise Center just two days later, so I didn't really have time to make this post, where I take a look at some of the statistics from the 101 games I've been to.